


Hands

by Amarylissa



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-22
Updated: 2013-03-18
Packaged: 2017-11-26 11:50:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/650226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amarylissa/pseuds/Amarylissa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Danny falls apart a little bit</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hands

And with a bang, Steve is down. The perp is running down the road, but Danny’s not looking. All idea of proper protocol or securing the scene has left his mind. His one focus is his partner, lying on the floor, bleeding. 

With vests on, there are only a few places the bullet could have gone. Danny’s on the ground already, hand pushing on Steve’s hip, where he thinks the blood is coming from. It’s hard to tell, everything he is seeing seems fuzzy yet somehow intense. All he can focus on is the redness, the thick ooze of the blood, the smell that causes bile to rise in his throat. 

Somewhere, more shots ring out, but Danny hears this only distantly. One hand pressing on the wound, he puts his other hand in Steve’s: his partner is so cold even in the midday heat of downtown. 

Then someone’s hand is on his shoulder. Kono is pulling him away, a paramedic is there, applying dressings, inserting an IV. Danny’s sitting on the tarmac, another paramedic talking at him, as he watches Steve being lifted into the ambulance. He is suddenly bereft, his hand empty. He scrambles to his feet, stumbling after his partner. The ambulance doors have shut, and again Kono is there, hands around him, stopping him from falling. 

“It’ll be alright, we’re going to get you checked out, we’ll follow Steve,” Kono soothes, ushering him into a car. 

The journey seems to take for ever as Danny jitters in the passenger seat. At the hospital he explodes out of the door and into the ER. Kono is right behind him, smoothing his passage, but even her most tactful persuasion only brings them to an inner waiting area, as Steve is already in surgery. 

Kono takes Danny to wash the blood off his hands. There’s nothing he can do about the shirt, but somehow she obtains a clean t-shirt for him. He doesn’t argue as his shirt and tie go straight in the bin. 

Back in the waiting room, Danny paces, fuelled by sugared hospital coffee. Nurses in blue pass the waiting room, each one raising his hope momentarily. Chin turns up, sharing details of how the perp went down, just seconds after shooting Steve. Danny hears the words, but nothing really sinks in until, 

“You can come and see him now.”

The nurse in the doorway doesn’t explain more, doesn’t need to as Danny is up, ready to follow her. A few short steps, and they are in the ICU, Kono and Chin holding back slightly. Steve is rousing from the anaesthetic, confused until his eyes light on his partner. And when their hands finally touch, Danny feels a buzz that has nothing to do with the wires still attached to Steve.


	2. Hurt

Steve’s angry, frustrated, and more full of metal work than he was before he was shot. The bullet hit the left side of his pelvis, leaving a complicated mess of blood and bone. He’s lucky, so he’s told: no vital organs damaged. A fractured pelvis can be fatal: just a centimetre to the right and he might not be here now. But he doesn’t feel lucky.

He’s been in the hospital for ten days now. The first three days were a blur but the last seven have gone by with painful clarity. He’s not sleeping well: he’s not doing anything to make him tired and there is a constant buzz of background noise 24-7 as doors open, nurses whisper, patients are moved in and out. His hip hurts like a bitch, but the morphine makes him zoned out and nauseous so he leaves it as long as possible between self administered doses. 

Danny’s wise to that, even if the nurses aren’t, so Steve gets more pain relief, and maybe a little sleep when his partner is there, but Danny’s strung out right now, torn between being with Steve and being acting head of Five-0. 

“Just take the damn medication Steven: you look like something the cat’s dragged in.”

Steve doesn’t reply. It would be all too easy to shoot the same accusation right back at Danny, but he can see the worry in his partner’s eyes, knows just how little Danny is sleeping too. 

Steve’s worried too: the doctor told him that he’s probably going to need more surgery, that even with the pins in place his hip and pelvis won’t work as before. This spells the end of his time in active service, he’s going to have to resign from the Navy. And he’s damned if he’s going to spend the next thirty years riding a desk. He’s not told Danny: but from the way his partner looks at him he’s sure Danny knows anyway. 

Chin and Kono stop by daily. Chin is stoic, calm, and talks of everything and nothing, the perfect hospital visitor. But Kono is more transparent. She doesn’t come to see Steve on her own, and shies away from anything but the lightest conversation. 

Danny’s there every evening he doesn’t have Grace. After the first few moments, a few verbal jousts for old times sake, they don’t talk. There’s nothing to say. Danny’s bone-deep exhausted, too tired to keep up his usual torrent of words. Steve doesn’t want to listen to a run down of the day with Five-0: it is too painful to hear about everything he can’t do. And anything he might tell Danny, the things that are scaring him most, he can’t put into words. 

So five nights out of seven, Danny sits and holds his hand as the day fades into night. And the only light in Steve’s life at the moment is the fact that his partner is still exactly where he needs him when the sun comes up again.


	3. Healing

It hurts Danny to watch Steve sometimes, the tension evident in his former colleagues shoulders as he limps out onto the lanai, cane in one hand, ice pack in the other. Steve’s spent the afternoon in physical therapy. Now he’s retreating to watch the sea, ice pack on his hip, to see if the pain will subside. Danny runs water onto the rice, shakes the chicken in the pan, mixes and pours. Cooking dinner is one tiny way in which he can share Steve’s load. 

Both men have aged visibly in the past few weeks. There are new lines round Danny’s eyes, Steve seems to have more grey hairs. But something else has changed too. Danny goes out to work, speaks to the team, chases down criminals, but everyone can see that he’s only half there as he goes through the motions. Steve, well, Steve just stays home. And if Danny drags him out for an evening beer with Chin and Kono, they only stay a short while. Never known for long conversations, Steve’s quieter than ever, even with the team. 

But back at home, if Steve struggles to get out of the lounger, now he’ll ask Danny for help. And neither of them mention it if he holds on for longer than he needs. Together the men make slow progress in through the doors and up the stairs. And in the bedroom, Danny helps Steve undress, not because he needs help any more but because they like the closeness they learnt when he did. And Danny kneels down carefully to help Steve off with his shoes, then leans forward to take Steve into his mouth. And Steve fucks him, slowly, taking care, partly out of love, partly out of pain. Then Steve lies back on the bed to fall into a fitful painkiller-fueled sleep, while Danny lies beside him and worries what tomorrow will bring.


End file.
